Tag: Joy

Begin again

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Sea shore kerala.jpg

Often the message this time of year is to completely re-shape or transform ourselves. This can sometimes mask a kind of aggression towards ourselves and suggest that most change needs to be dramatic. In most cases acceptance, integration and starting over are what is really needed :

That we go numb along the way is to be expected. Even the bravest among us, who give their lives to care for others, go numb,  when the heart can take in no more, when we need time to digest all we meet. Overloaded and overwhelmed, we start to pull back from the world, so we can internalize what the world keeps giving us. Perhaps the noblest act is the unheralded effort to return: to open our hearts once they’ve closed, to open our souls once they’ve shied away, to soften our minds once they’ve been hardened by the storms of our day.

Mark Nepo, Hearing the Cries of the World

Qualities for a full life

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Glasblaeser.jpg

Rumi’s advice for us if we want to fully take part in the dance this year. Courage to make the first step will always be a good idea….

There’s courage involved if you want

to become truth.  There is a broken-

open place in a lover.  Where are

those qualities of bravery and sharp

compassion in this group?  What’s the

use of old and frozen thought?  I want

a howling hurt.  This is not a treasury

where gold is stored; this is for copper.

We alchemists look for talent that

can heat up and change.  Lukewarm

won’t do. Halfhearted holding back,

well-enough getting by?  Not here.

Rumi

Sunday and New Year Quote: Just Dance

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:U.S. Navy Cryptologic Technician Technical 3rd Class Emily Garcia-Delgado dances with a child at the Thanh Tam Special School while members of the U.S. 7th Fleet Band ensemble Orient Express perform in Da Nang 110717-N-XR557-090.jpg

Every child has known God

Not the God of Names

Not the God of Don’ts

Not the God who never does anything weird

But the God who only knows four words

And keeps repeating them, saying

“Come Dance with Me”

Come Dance.

Hafiz

Where to focus

Karl Duffy11 Comments

 File:Baby Turtle.jpg

If you get the inside right

the outside will fall into place

Eckhart Tolle

photo FotoDawg

To really see

Karl Duffy1 Comment

mary-oliver

The highest goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information,

but to face our moments as sacred

Abraham Herschel

Like holding a baby

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:US Navy 100202-N-4971L-162 Sailor helps Haitian woman by holding baby.jpg

Thich Nhat Hahn from the Zen Tradition using the Christmas story as a way of teaching how to meditate:

I am going to remind you of the way to practice. First, “in” and “out.” It means that when I breathe in, I know I am breathing in. It’s easy. And when I breathe out, I know I am breathing out. I don’t mix the two things up. Breathing in, I know it is my in-breath. Breathing out, I know this is my out-breath. By that time, you stop all the thinking, you just pay attention to your in-breath and your out-breath. You are 100 percent with your in-breath and your out-breath.

It is like holding a baby in such a way that you hold it with 100 percent of yourself. Suppose this is a baby and I hold the baby like this. I hold the baby with 100 percent of myself. Remember, there are times when your mother holds you like this. Have you seen the image of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus? She holds him like that: 100 percent. So here, our in-breath is our baby, and we hold our in-breath 100 percent. “Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in.” You just embrace your in-breath, nothing else. Don’t think of anything else. That is the secret of success.

Thich Nhat Hahn